Derrick Henry is building his MVP case but its an uphill battle for RBs

Derrick Henry is on pace for a historical 2021. Can that make him NFL MVP?

Running backs don’t win league Associated Press MVP awards unless one of two things happen:

A) They have undeniably historic seasons.
B) They rise above a quarterback cohort that’s either underwhelming or so loaded with veteran standouts that they cancel each other out in voters’ eyes.

Derrick Henry is on pace to destroy that first benchmark. The question is whether this year’s crop of passers will step aside and give him a clear path to the league’s highest regular season honor. The Tennessee Titans workhorse has the best odds of any non-QB to take home the award at +2500, but 10th-best overall behind signal callers like Matthew Stafford and Justin Herbert.

Those odds will change if the tailback keeps this up. Henry’s 143-yard performance in Week 6’s upset win against the Bills put him on pace for 2,218 rushing yards — a mark that would shatter Eric Dickerson’s 2,105-yard NFL record thanks to the league’s recent addition of a 17th regular season game. He’s been undeniably vital to Tennessee’s 4-2 start, recording 40 percent of the team’s total yards and 56 percent of its touchdowns.

The Titans, since 2019, are 21-3 in games during which Henry runs for at least 100 yards, including three playoff wins. They’re 6-14 when he does not. In Week 6 he was instrumental in defeating the AFC’s best team (at least in terms of overall DVOA) in a prime time showdown where his quarterback had his worst outing of the season.

There isn’t another non-QB who means more to his team than Henry. Does that mean he has a shot to be the first player to win MVP that didn’t spend the bulk of his Sundays nestled behind his center’s butt since Adrian Peterson in 2012?

Yes and no..

Why Derrick Henry will win the 2021 NFL MVP

Henry is the engine that propels the Titans’ offense. Through six weeks, 43 percent of Tennessee’s plays have either been Henry handoffs or passing targets. He’s currently on pace for 459 carries — a mark that would blow away Larry Johnson’s NFL record by more than 40. With a 17th game in the lineup, he’s in line for more than 2,200 yards and a place in the NFL record book.

Yet despite all the wear and tear and a truly bonkers workload that comes with leading the league in carries the last two years, he’s faster than he’s ever been.

This isn’t altogether uncommon for Henry; but it is unusual to see him perform this well so early in the season. Tractorcito’s identity as the back who destroys worn-down defenses typically comes from November and beyond. This year, he’s taken up that mantle to start the season.

Derrick Henry, Weeks 1-6 2018-2020: 18.2 carries per game, 72 yards per game, 4 yards per carry, 0.61 touchdowns per game, 1.9 targets per game

Derrick Henry. Weeks 1-6 2021: 27 carries per game, 130.5 yards per game, 4.7 yards per carry, 1.67 touchdowns per game, 3 targets per game

Those are ludicrous numbers, but Henry’s past suggests he’s capable of taking on a historic workload. Just asking whether or not he can keep this up is a very basic question. Instead, we should be asking if he’s due for his traditional late-season breakthrough.

Henry, typically, runs for 75 percent (!) more yards per game over the latter half of the season compared to the front end. His average carries go more than 50 percent further. He scores touchdowns more than twice as often:

Derrick Henry, games 1-8 2018-2020: 17.6 carries per game, 71.8 rush yards per game, 4.1 yards per carry, 0.63 touchdowns per game

Derrick Henry, games 9-16 2018-2020: 20.6 carries per game, 126.2 rush yards per game, 6.1 yards per carry, 1.3 touchdowns per game

If he turns on those afterburners again, we aren’t looking at a 2,200-yard season. We are looking at something in the range of 3,000 yards.

Is that absurd? Sure is! Will he hit that number? Almost certainly not! But even if Henry only surges a bit over the back half of the season 2,500 rushing yards could be in play if he makes it through all 18 weeks of the year.

Henry’s value goes beyond only what he brings to the run game. His presence forces opponents to frequently stack the box in order to safeguard against him thrashing them with breakaways. Here’s what he’s meant to Ryan Tannehill, who led the league in passer rating in 2019 and has generally been lightyears better as a Titan than he’d ever been in his seven years with the Miami Dolphins.

When Henry is on his game, Tannehill is more efficient and takes fewer sacks. When he’s forced to throw the ball to jumpstart the offense he’s still pretty good, but prone to more negative plays like interceptions and losses in the backfield.

The linebacker-trucking runner has had more of a presence in the passing game as well, though those advances have been fairly tame. His 16 catches are already three away from a personal best. Henry’s 23 receiving yards per game is more than double his career average coming into 2021 (8.9). If he simply keeps his early season pace, he’ll finish the year with 2,610 total yards — more than 100 yards beyond Chris Johnson’s NFL-record 2,509.

All Henry has to do to have a record-breaking season is keep this up. If he can be as good as he’s been late in the year this winter, he could absolutely shatter the league’s single-season running back marks.

Why Derrick Henry won’t win the 2021 NFL MVP

When Adrian Peterson won the award in 2012, it wasn’t just because he ran for 2,000 yards. That year’s crop of big quarterbacks saw a bunch of good, not great performances from players who’d already won MVP at that point. Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Aaron Rodgers were leaderboard staples across most passing categories but played pretty much to their career averages that fall. This created a path for Peterson to swoop in and bolster his Hall of Fame bonafides.

That won’t be the case in 2021. There are simply too many good quarterbacks who’d make stellar first-time award winners.

  • Kyler Murray has propelled the Cardinals to a 6-0 start and has finally harnessed all the potential Arizona dreamed of when it paired him with Kliff Kingsbury.
  • Dak Prescott has been absolutely stellar in leading Dallas to the top of an NFC East that will not be topped by a seven-win team in 2021. He can point to last year’s lost season as direct proof his impact for the Cowboys.
  • Josh Allen had his Bills looking like the best team in the AFC before Monday night’s loss in Nashville (he still had 379 total yards and three touchdowns in defeat).
  • Matthew Stafford, freed from the black hole perpetually flattening Detroit football, is finally getting the appreciation he’s long deserved.
  • Justin Herbert has the Chargers poised to win the AFC West and had been dealing until the Ravens stopped him cold in Week 6.

The usage between a tailback and a quarterback leaves a massive gap to overcome.

Henry gets the ball on roughly 43 percent of the Titans’ offensive snaps. Prescott is the nexus of 57 percent of the Cowboys’ snaps. Murray is responsible for 62 percent of Arizona’s overall output. Allen has either dropped back or run the ball on more than 67 percent of Buffalo’s plays.

Henry’s raw numbers are stunning, but he’s not the most efficient runner in the league. Through the first five weeks of the season he didn’t even crack the top 20 in yards per carry. His 1.7 yards after contact rank 29th among 49 qualified ballcarriers. His 20.3 rushes per broken tackle rate ranks 36th.

While everything about Henry’s past suggests he can keep this pace, the fact remains he’s never carried the ball 400+ times in a season. The only three players to do so after 1986 were Jamal Anderson, Eddie George, and Johnson. None of those guys were the same afterward; that massive workload season was the last Pro Bowl year for all three.

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Here’s what we know about Henry’s situation: he’s playing like late season Derrick Henry to start the year. The Titans would not be 4-2 without him. He is the single-most impactful running back in the NFL.

What we don’t know is whether he can hit his typical late-season stride, whether he’ll start to suffer any ill effects of taking 20+ hits per game for three straight years or whether the Titans’ passing offense will be able to lift some of that weight from his shoulders.

Through six weeks he’s built a convincing case as the NFL’s offensive player of the year. Whether or not that can translate to a tailback MVP depends on how Henry finishes the regular season — and whether or not quarterbacks like Murray, Prescott, Stafford, and Allen can forge a stronger argument.